MEDIA RELEASE

NICK XENOPHON M.L.C.

INDEPENDENT NO POKIES MEMBER OF THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL  

25 February 2004

DWINDLING NUMBER OF NO POKIES HOTELS

DESERVE A SPECIAL DEAL

No Pokies MLC Nick Xenophon has called on the State Government to provide special assistance for hotels which have resisted the push to install poker machines.  

Mr Xenophon said a pub having pokies was “a license to print money”, and hotels which made a decision not to install pokies deserved “special consideration”.  He called for an annual fund of $5 million for non-pokies pubs.  “That sum is really peanuts in comparison to the over $275 million a year the State Government is raking in with pokies taxes”.

Mr Xenophon said:

“The Productivity Commission’s report into Australia ’s Gambling Industries reveals that 42.3% of poker machine losses come from significant problem gamblers.  In other words, hotels are making a large proportion of their income off the backs of vulnerable and addicted players.  That carries with it a huge social and economic cost.  Pubs that resist the pokies push deserve special consideration in the form of grants funded from poker machines taxes.”.

“The pokies barons of SA can wear a bit more tax to pay for a fund that will go a long way in keeping viable a traditional pub culture in SA.”.

Written and authorised by Nick Xenophon, 653 Lower North East Road, Paradise, SA 5075